Photo: Dennis Murphy, CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Durand Oak

Quercus sinuata

Also called Durand white oak, Quercus durandii.

A southern white oak of creek bottoms and limestone bluffs, with pale bark that flakes away in papery scales and wavy leaves, often silvery beneath.

RareWildlife valueTolerates wet soil

Type: Large tree
Mature height: 50–75 ft
USDA zones: 5–9
Growth rate: Medium
Sun: Full
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Floodplain forests and stream banks
Native range: 10 states, north to North Carolina, south to Florida and west to Texas
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Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas
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Durand oak is a tall white oak of the southern Coastal Plain. Botanists have long disputed its correct name, and some still call it Quercus durandii. The tree described here is var. sinuata, and a shrubby variety of the same species grows on the dry limestone hills of central Texas. NatureServe ranks it imperiled in five of the states where it grows, and critically so in Louisiana. It appears not to be common in cultivation. Set it in a bottomland planting or the moist corner of a large yard, where a tall tree has room.

Size, growth and what to expect

At the JC Raulston Arboretum, a tree that arrived at about a foot tall in 2000 stood about 10 feet six years later. That is a foot and a half a year, the pace our growth estimator gives a medium grower. Expect 50 to 75 feet. Wild trees reach 15 meters, sometimes 20, and mature height can reach 23 meters, about 75 feet.

It flowers from March to May, and as in every white oak the acorns ripen the same year, in October. They are about half an inch to five eighths of an inch long, in a very shallow cup that covers a quarter of the nut or less. Jays eat and bury them, deer eat them too, and the leaves feed duskywing and hairstreak caterpillars.

It grows wild on the Coastal Plain from North Carolina and Florida west to Texas, on rich alluvial and limestone soils. The largest known tree stands in Stewart County, Georgia.

How to grow Durand Oak

Durand oak wants full sun and a deep, moist loam or clay, near neutral or limy. It takes low ground that stays wet for part of the year. Set trees 30 feet apart, and keep each one 25 feet from a wall and more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and deep enough for the taproot. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. White oak acorns sprout soon after they fall. Sow them on arrival, half an inch deep, under hardware cloth.

Water every week or two through the first summer, then in dry spells for two more. Deer browse young oaks, so guard each sapling with a tube or cage for its first three years. Keep one leader while the tree is young, and prune in late winter.

The flowers are wind pollinated, and an acorn crop wants another oak nearby. Its young leaves can be mistaken for water oak, a red oak, but the acorns ripen in a single season, as in every white oak. Thin bark leaves it open to fire damage, so keep brush fires, mowers and string trimmers away from the trunk.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

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